Little Bones
by Dr. Abraxas
Summary: Rin seems to be alone but claims she's married. And she's either getting pregnant or loosing the children. But why don't the children survive? Why hasn't anyone seen the husband? Just what's the bond between husband and wife all about anyway?


Author's Note: I can't stress enough the importance of reading it carefully. This isn't like a regular story, where everything is out in the open and the narrative is 100 explicitly clear. The details are there but it's up to you to put the pieces together. There are two ways to interpret the ending and the story itself. The story is extremely unconventional. You have been warned.

* * *

"Little Bones" by Abraxas ( 08-01-14) 

When Rin stepped into the garden of the house she felt, immediately, disturbed and confused.

The sky was red though last she recalled it was blue. She knew, rather, she suspected she had not been away _that_ long. Was she daydreaming about Lord Sesshoumaru? Was she wandering through the forest, by the river? Again. Certainly she could not have wasted all of that daylight at the market; indeed, she was not carrying groceries.

Somehow, someway, she lost track of time and space.

It bothered the woman until she reached the door. Then and there the trouble vanished along with the curious, parallel trenches carved into the dirt. And the butchered foliage scattered about the garden. And the hill of earth that no animal could have erected. Everything strange and out-of-place faded away forgotten if noticed. It did not matter anymore when she saw the staff against the entrance.

It was as if new life were breathed into her soul now that the husband returned.

* * *

It was morning when Yuka and Ayume discovered Rin at the bank of the river. The two young women were surprised to see their friend _there_ again. Was it as recent as spring that she came to mourn? The poor abandoned girl, they concluded, just seemed to be unlucky as if cursed. 

Rin was not aware that they watched.

"Shikata ganai," she whispered again and again.

She was deep in prayer and regret – so much so that the world beyond the shrine did not exist.

"It's curious, you know, every time she's made _that_ offering –"

"Yes, I noticed it, too. It's like she never seems to be with child."

Rin dropped a scrap of parchment onto the water. It floated away past the rocks, the roots of the trees. The leaves shivered and rained a dew upon the river. The ripples of the droplets carried the offering further. Into the sea. To drown in the tears of Kwannon.

The grieved sighed and wandered back along the trail.

"It's the sixth time, isn't it? The sixth time a child was lost," Yuka mumbled. "She tries so hard."

They neared the site of the shrine.

"I blame the husband," Ayume added.

They nodded at the sentiment of it.

"He's supposed to be a powerful man yet she lives like a servant."

Back, home, Rin was alone.

She stood at the base of the stairs. Above, beyond the hatch, the attic opened into an abyss of dread. Ominous and cruel. But that was reflex and she reminded herself the fear only existed within the mind. It was not real. The chamber of screams haunted only nightmare. Besides, she needed to go inside.

It had been days since the last tragedy unfolded. It was time. It was safe now that the shriek was silenced. Again.

Struggling against a torrent of guilt, the woman, not as full of life as promise, ventured into the bleak.

With a lantern she explored a scene she wished she did not need to repeat. Robes upon the floor crumpled where they collapsed. Bloodied. Basins with dry, encrusted remains. Blades, blades – rusted and dull – she picked them up where they fell. Then screamed when she found bones.

_Little bones._

"Jinzo, forgive me!"

She wept into the robes.

Maybe if she did not fear the rejection of the villagers and of the husband – and the greater loss that would have followed – maybe she would not be forced to do the unthinkable.

Afterward she wrapped the remains and collected the traps.

Grief would be replaced with routine.

* * *

The groceries were by the hearth exactly where she left them. 

Without pause she prepared the meal. It was like she knew that day would be special yet there was no suggestion of the husband's return when she bought the ingredients. It was simple coincidence. Or, perhaps, a spell cast involuntarily to lure her man back into her life.

Again as always she labored consumed by obsession. The single purpose of which was to please. The drive was so strong that she failed to tidy the rooms of the house. Dispose certain offending artifacts of a distinctly Buddhist nature. Hide various traps that had been baited but not set.

When the last course was potted atop the fire, Rin sat at the corner of the table and waited.

* * *

"It's a shame a girl as pretty as you should be alone." 

"Eri." Rin blushed. "Now you sound like one of the boys."

"But it's true despite that," added another woman. "If your husband was everything he claimed to be you would not be alone."

"I'm not alone," she protested unoffended. She knew the girls meant well. As long as they did not interfere there would not be – danger. "He's busy."

She gazed at the weeds clutched into her grip. The wrinkled, leafy fronds reflected suggestions of the husband. It was a secret perverted image that brought a shiver of excitement and a little pang of guilt. But it was not the guilt of betrayal. How could it be betrayal? Oh, Lord Sesshoumaru.

She shook out of the trance and walked about the rest of the market.

She was beautiful though modesty prevented her from giving into such vanity. Yet she could have married anyone she wanted. There was no man, uncommitted or otherwise, who did not spare a look. The kind of leer a wolf gave its prey – it induced a memory distorted but not forgotten.

If Lord Sesshoumaru were there what would be left of the gazers?

In her mind it was always Lord Sesshoumaru who protected her.

Because despite what happened she only really belonged to him.

What was time and space even death to a bond that impenetrable?

"Yamadori is a rich man," Yuka stated.

"And Kagewaki, well, a minor noble," said Ayume.

But Rin was elsewhere.

Her loyalty did not waver but more and more she wondered if the husband _wanted_ to abandon her. The memory of it, that battle, its outcome, was it too much? Could it be that he believed it was too sad and that it was best to forget? Yet he could not let go so easy – rather than a divorce, a softer and gradual process. Like a dream fading away. To restart the world. _But Lord Sesshoumaru_ – that hold was strong and the husband was as bound as the wife to recreate a sliver of what life used to be. Neither of their lives would have had meaning but for the preservation of what they shared.

No, he would not leave.

"Here, my lady."

Rin's frame of reference was jolted by a hand holding a vial that was thrust into view.

"My lady, it only protects you."

"Me?" she asked, accepting the offering.

"My master wanted _you_ especially. Demons surround you," the acolyte explained.

Rin looked at the vial. She smiled and he nodded. Then returned to his master. The elder, gray-haired man was speaking to villagers nearby. There was a weird familiarity about the man's flowing violet garb and staff.

"Did you see how that boy looked at you?" Eri asked excitedly.

Rin sighed.

"Rin, you'd live this fantasy forever!"

"He's just shy. Busy and shy. More than a little fearful of strangers. After all, they keep trying to separate him from his wife. But he hasn't abandoned me. And he will not abandon me."

* * *

The sun set in a brilliant aura. A deep, orange glow stretched with white clouds. And when that light faded only the stars remained. The stars and the flames of the hearth. 

It was then and there at the corner of the table that Rin awoke.

A hand caressed her hair, her face - suddenly it withdrew, melting back into the shape of a figure that remained enshadowed.

"You go through so much trouble, girl," it said. "I feel guilty for you suffer for me."

"Don't feel shame, husband," she said, reaching for that hand, rubbing it, squeezing it.

Within the dark, unnoticed, a lizard crawled along the floor away from the table as if it had been born between Rin's legs.

"I miss you. Oh, how I miss you, every time you go away it's like you slip away. Further and further. I keep it to myself but I do wonder."

"How can I not return, when you make me live?"

He brought her hand up to his lips.

"Will you stay a while longer?"

But the husband did not answer.

* * *

Alone within the garden, away from the screams and the voices of the village, again at last Rin was at peace. 

Yet a torment lingered. Why did her friends urge a divorce? Was it not obvious her devotion to the husband? And the stream of failed, malformed children, was it not proof _he_ remained loyal? An ordinary, human husband would have turned to another female already but that he continued was that not proof of his affection?

How could she divorce such a husband?

And _that_ monk? Why was she approached? Singled out of all the women?

_Letcher_, she thought, appalled.

If the husband, if Lord Sesshoumaru –

Of course they could have moved again but what would have become of the garden?

She reached down to caress a mound of dirt between flowers. The feature was fresh. At once, with but a touch, the mound shivered and shook itself to pieces.

She gasped but it was only a lizard. Yet when it scurried out of the ground, when it ran across the garden, it disturbed what had been silenced.

She covered the ground, hands filthy with the blood of the earth, trembling and panicking – all of which turned into horror when she realized what the lizard did.

"Little bones," she wept.

The animal took away a part of the remains.

The skull – only the long, toothy jawbone remained.

"Will there be no peace for you now?"

A hand grasped her shoulder – prayer-beads pressed against fleshed.

"No!"

* * *

After a few hours the husband led the wife up into the attic. 

As if by sorcery the room was different and it was more than just the change of mood offered by night. There had been a material change which she judged was caused by the husband. He must have been busy while she napped.

However it came about there was now a blanket upon the floor by the table.

The man and the woman sat upon it side by side. He rested his head against her breast. She loosened her kimono to expose her flesh. Then, after a moment of silence, she reached into his hakama.

"Comfort me," Rin urged.

Gently he drew aside her robes and eased her onto the pillow. Carefully he unwrapped himself and slithered naked upon her body. Something cold, something hard, tickled her stomach with its roughness as it lowered then intermingled with the warm, soft flesh.

* * *

Rin caressed the head of the husband while it rested atop her stomach. She fondled and he explored. He was concerned about those parts of her body still smooth, almost virginal, despite what kept happening there again and again. 

"Ever a survivor?" he asked the lips of the womb. "The past is doomed to die with us."

She heard a few whispers, restrained, about what happened with Naraku years and years ago – it was the tormented of the cruelty of it.

"What we do to keep the world unchanged. As if time could be willed away. But things change. Against great hardship and pain, things change, girl. Do you wonder what it would have been like?"

"I wonder, husband, I do. But as long as we're here, as long as you're with me, isn't that the same? Doesn't that preserve what things used to be?"

"Preserved? It can't be. What memory compares with the reality of what was?"

Rin shut her eyes while a cool, autumn breeze oozed through the roof. Tiny pinpricks of sunlight followed, filtering across the gaps of tiles, twinkling like stars. There was a smell of something fresh, something new, about the world beyond the attic that she could not fathom. She was thrilled yet afraid but at that instant it seemed time stilled. _If only that moment could be like forever_, she thought.

Then the realization of it struck. When she shut her eyes she felt his presence only by the effect of his touch, his skin. The pressure between two bodies, tumbling and thrusting into each other. Yet he was slipping. And while she clutched tight he was fading.

To extend the memory she wondered, aloud:

"What if we didn't hide?"

"Oh, you can be a silly, little girl, can't you?" she heard. "Would you be happier if you ran away with me? And lived with me _in my world?_ To wander, eternally, like we used to do?"

"Yes," she wept. "I was the happiest then."

He kissed her wide, wet eyes.

She embraced his body but the figure could not be held.

"I fear you spend less and less time with me. It's like you're abandoning me. Slowly. Hoping that I'd forget. That I'd think my past was _imagined_."

"I wish it were a dream. It's hard to accept. It's just, it's that – I don't want to forget him! I don't want to believe it could be finished like that. And then, to move away and lead two separate lives – it would be like admitting defeat, yes? Like saying a hero was conquered and forgotten. That time won. But it's true, it's true, all of it, and it's difficult to believe yet it must be believed-"

"No – husband!" she shrieked at the feeling of him, his body, his spirit, escaping through her grasp like a breath from her lips.

"What monstrous things we do to keep alive illusion."

Thus came the words not from either the husband or the wife but from conscience itself at last freed.

"The truth is –"

"Husband!"

But it was too late – silencing one voice silenced all.

A staff slid across a table and fell by her feet.

Crying, reaching and failing, she called out, "Jaken! Jaken, come back to me!"


End file.
